Hi, I'm Jens Nystrom at Stompittutorials.com. When I first started skiing I had nobody there to help me,
I just went out and tried it. Was it traumatic?
Yes, it was. So I made a video
that I wish I saw before my first day of skiing. In this video
I'm going to teach you 10 different skills and tips that
are really important to safely ski alone on your first day of skiing.
Remember, this is not a good substitute for a ski instructor
but I know a lot of you guys out there is not going to see a ski instructor at the first day, so
this video's for you.
Before you even head up the mountain, get yourself a slope map so you know where you're going to go.
So when you're at the base station you need to plan where to go. As a rule of thumb
First look if there are any green slopes,
they're the easiest slopes in North America and some parts of Europe.
And then in some other countries in Europe the easiest slopes start with the color blue, so look for green first, then blue then
you'll be safe in most places. The slope should also be rather short next to a magic-carpet lift,
they are the easiest ones. On the map you can also see what kind of lifts
there are, if it's a chairlift, a t-bar or, for example, a cable car.
It's likely that you've heard that ski boots are really uncomfortable, and it sucks.
So that's why I'm going to show you how to get them on properly so you have a bigger chance of
having like comfortable shoes and a better time simply. When you take your ski boots on, it's great
if they're warm because cold boots are stiff. Under all the buckles and bend the shell out and pull the tongue up.
Push the foot down with the toes pointing straight down,
then bang the heel into the ground to make the heel slide into the heel pocket, and tighten this strap then atop the buckle.
Repeat then it feels nice and tight then tighten the strap.
Gently buckle the lower two buckles, if you do them too tight you press the foot arch down too much
and this will cause pain and cold feet.
This is important, you put one slightly higher then down, and these two guys
they lock the ski in place so that you can lift both skis in this one.
So if you don't want to carry it, something like this
you can actually carry some weight over the wrists in the binding, like that.
I found out a pretty neat way of carrying it,
Carry them straight and the poles too. Don't carry anything like this in the beginning
because you'll stab people in the legs and stuff, don't be too tempted to
carry the skis on your shoulder, oh shit now I have it on the wrong side.
Pay attention to this as I mentioned.
Anyway carrying the skis on the shoulder can be quite dangerous.
We need to know how to get the skis on, in the front you have a toe piece in the binding that ejects sideways
Rear piece of the binding ejects up. Before you take your skis on, you need to check that there's no snow under the boot,
or do like this, it's my favorite way of getting it off. Use the poles to balance, then you stick the toe in
make sure that you align the heel, then push down.
To take the skis off,
you can use the ski pole, find that hole lock back there, and then push. But to be honest,
I never do that.
I just use the ski or boot and kick and use the two poles for balance.
Alright now when we got the skis on and
helmet, back protector's also a good idea and we need to learn how to move forwards to get to the lift.
You take the poles on like this and then down because then you can push with a lot of force downwards.
and when you drop the pole, it's rather safe. So to just use your poles is the easiest way of moving forwards,
but it's not very powerful.
That's why we're also going to look at how to skate briefly.
Poles down and push forwards. You can use your legs a little bit that you go down when you push forwards.
Then put your feet in outward D,
Lift one foot pretty high, you start with the poles, push, and then out with your feet.
So hands, feet,
Hands, feet.
Okay, you managed to push yourself forward to the lift and then look at what other people are doing and they will give you an
idea on how quick you have to be.
Alright,
so wait for the gate and
then, and then,
and then you go.
Easy push yourself forward,
poles in one hand.
Look over your shoulder, this one is luckily quite slow, grab it,
sit down. It's important that you pull this thing down,
put your feet nicely on it. Just enjoy the ride.
Don't do that. You can only do that in some lifts some will fall out.
Take your poles in one hand, take your feet off the bar, and then slowly put it up, lean back so you don't fall off,
and it's going to be a bit downhill now, so I'll have to use that snowplough
- maybe
- safely right off to the side and stop.
If you want to get on a button lift take it easy both poles in one hand the same thing as on a t-bar and you look where it's coming from,
first of all it's important that you point your skis in the direction of the lift,
Then you look where the lift is coming from and reach out and grab it.
Put it between your legs. If it was a t-bar we could grab the side here too, just cruise off gently
and look where you're going.
On the top just drop the bar and ride safely off to the side. So now we're on the slope and
we need to be able to take the skis on, on the slope.
And as we see here, downhill is in that direction and I have pointed the skis
90 degrees. And it's important that you start with the lower ski,
push it in.
The reason why you want to take on the low one is because you can edge into the snow now
and make it easier to take on the top one.
So both skis are on.
In order to walk up,
we have to walk sideways.
Like the skate, you can do it, but it's really hard at the beginning.
So what you want to do is edge the skis up,
like this, you use the knees and hips a little bit. You don't have to do very much, and then take steps sideways like this.
Remember to use your poles so in case you start sliding forwards or backwards you can
use the poles to slow you down or stop you.
Here I'm obviously faking a crash,
but this is how people tend to land all the time, head down the slope with the skis crossed and
the way to get up again,
is you first, like, extend your legs a bit,
do a bit of a split like that to uncross the skis, and then you have to get your feet under you.
So now it's downhill in that direction, and I'm going to decrease
at an angle with the downhill.
And to get up get your feet really close to your body then you can use like the fist or the hand
to get up. That takes a bit of muscle power, if you're a little bit bigger than I am that's not so easy.
And you can put your poles like this.
I'm grabbing on the top then this hand on the bottom, and then if you use the poles to make
yourself stand up. If you crash,
then it's likely that it's going to eject in the front and leave the back binding down, and what's annoying with that?
It's like that you can't really get in the ski.
So then you need to push this one down, so use your hand
or your foot, so you can open the binding and finally take it on.
We're going to do a snow plough. This is what a snow plough looks like. You push the tails out
and keep the noses close-ish together
keep a little bit of a distance because otherwise they can get tangled up like this and get stuck.
And ski a little bit then press them out.
So go forwards.
It's a pretty neat way of stopping, and it's the simplest form of braking. One cool thing about the
snow plough, the right ski in this case, wants to ski that way and the left that way.
If you stand straight, like, they cancel each other out to go straight. When you're in this position
if you move the body weight a little bit on to the
left ski in this case it's gonna start turning that way.
You need to be centered to feel the front of your ski boots
Just rest in them a little bit. You don't need to lean my forward sore or absolutely not backwards
Just easy shin pressure and arms in the front if you can see them. They're in a pretty good place
All right, so I'm gonna stop slaying this way and put a little bit more way to my left leg
I'm gonna make one turn to stop then we try the other way
we're going to snow pluck a
little bit more weight than the left
But a little bit more weight and outside foot it makes me turn
Until I go slightly up the hill so use the terrain to slow me down
So now we're gonna put more weight on the right foot to make a turn to the left
It's confusing in the beginning. It's not that hot
Get into this nice snow plow get more weight on it. Ah
Sick right, try that a couple times. We isolate it do one turn at a time
Because now we'll try to link the turns together so we go straight down the mountain
More weight on the left foot and then we put some more weight on the right. They can just turn this way
Do that for several runs until you start feeling comfortable
Now I'll try to at the end of the turn
Bring in the inner ski to parallel and then in between turns your parallel for a moment then we plow again
Making our turn and bring it in again. This key comes in naturally, but doing this you need a bit more speed
No
And then the knee comes in
You'll notice that when you're snow plowing that can feel like the ski is stuck, and if you don't push the knee out
That's gonna. Make the skis slide in easier
Try that several runs, this is quite difficult
next good skill to know is
side slipping because if you come by a
steeper section of a slope that you're not comfortable with this can save you
Besides slipping is when you slide sideways sort of like a snowboarder would do about on skis
So as I told you when walking up we angle this skis up to be able to
Grip the snow and walk up, but if we angle them down
Then we can start
sliding like this
Make sure that you find a flat area. Where you do this this bumper. This is very difficult to do
So our angle them down, and I start sliding down
Angle again to control the speed to side slip in a smooth motion
It's important that you keep your feet for the close together makes it easy to keep the feet parallel and reduce unwanted
Movement in this case the next thing you have to have in mind here is that?
if you lean forwards
Then the edge is here, and I'm gonna grip this no more than details
And then the tails are gonna slide out, then you're gonna ski backwards. This is scary
So what you have to do if this happens is that you lean back a little bit?
Down here you don't sit back
You hang like back a little bit there, then the tails for this piece
I've gotta grip this no more making this skis, or nosis point downhill, and then you go forward
So if they just side slip and lean back
I'm gonna start moving forwards, so if I then lean forward
I'll start going backwards
And it's a very small tipping motion. I'm doing here
This is very small. Just this little makes me go forwards or backwards
So here it's a little bit steep too steep to snowplow so will side slip down
If I'm leaning back
We go forwards if I'm leaning forwards I go backwards
Always looking where you want to go?
You can make a scary steep section
Very easy if you get control of the side slipping because you can brake much harder than with the snowplow. Here's a quick
simplification of the parallel turn and
It's just you get a feeling for how you can start it if you're out there practicing this alone
how I was taught this first when I started skiing starting as you know you start doing just a parallel like Traverse and
Then you extend your legs
For words then your arm weight, then the tails a little bit, so they can start sliding a little bit
And then you're like you look over the neighbors fence over here let
Starched and a left turn and at the end of the turn you compress
and then
You traverse a little bit, and then you repeat that movement again, and I'm bent I extend the legs
Patiently wait go down, and I repeat
It's quite difficult at slow speed so
Maybe you can see they're in the end they got a bit too flat and too slow
And that is a little bit tricky, so you need to have a bit of courage and do with a bit of speed
But make sure anyway that you're on a really flat
Slope, but you go with decent speed on this flat slope and this up and down movement is
crucial
Otherwise it's not gonna happen for you
And as men should you know see a ski instructor get this right in the beginning great idea?
but at least for this video you get a bit of a
feel for how to get started with the parallel turns and all the things
If
You're getting the turns quite alright
let's try a couple of jumps some people say it's too early, but
Freestyle is so much fun. There's worth
Having a sneak peak off as soon as possible when you jump to bend down a little bit first look forwards, and then you
Quickly extend your legs and it's important that you extend it all the way forwards your legs are completely straight
Because you have to really move forwards because when you hit the jump the jump puts you up
And then you have to pop so you go forwards so your land perpendicular to learn it
like this
If you see it from the side
Hip
goes
all the way forward
Let's try it with some speed on the flat like that
They go something like this from a plow curl up jump
jump
If you felt good you can try jumping over a roller or something that
resembles a tiny jump because here you have to bring their hip forward sill and perpendicular to the landing I
Hope you enjoyed this video and know it's quite a simplification of skiing that is difficult
So maybe you want to see an instructor, but if not good luck learning from this video
If you want to learn some tricks in the park later on you can check out our first hand tricks video
Or you head over to stumble tutorial home slash beginner and get our beginner pack
Which is two hours of beginner trick tips and techniques? It's pretty good for you
Just getting started, but join one of our camps
I am looking forward to seeing you again so hit subscribe to be notified when we drop the next video. Thanks
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